Ware no Kizuna ga arunte ja nai
by BewareTheNerd
Summary: After Team 5D's disbands, everyone else moves forward, and 5D's becomes but a memory for them... All except Yusei. After years of waiting for his friends to return to Neo Domino City, he begins to reminisce. One-shot suicide fic.


_As the sun shone high above the freeway, Fudo Yusei led the six. He wanted to remain, to protect Neo Domino City, to protect Satellite, to protect the place where the bonds connecting him to his friends had been forged and strengthened._

_There was Jack, going into an international solo Riding Duel league. There was Crow, going to join a team as a professional D-Wheeler. There were the twins, going to be with there family. Then there was Aki, going to Germany to study medicine._

_Team 5D's, all going in different directions._

_A pained, almost forced smile emerged on the left side of his face. They would come back. He knew they would. Someday, they would all gather again in this city, where they had fought with their dragons._

_Some day._

_Reaching the 6-way road, Yusei turned his D-Wheel back, lifting his hand up as Team 5D's whipped past him._

_Jack. Crow. Ruka. Rua. Aki. The marks of the Crimson Dragon were gone._

_They split up at the road, and he was left staring at the rapidly widening gap between everyone in Team 5D's._

_They would all come back someday._

_Gritting his teeth, Yusei turned his D-Wheel and headed back to their – no, his – small garage-apartment underneath the clock shop._

* * *

Lying in a hospital bed, he remembered that moment, the moment when his friends had all split up.

Jack had become King of Riding Duels internationally, by his own strength, and still dueled on his Wheel of Fortune when he had the strength. Crow had retired from the team league, letting Rua fill his position. Aki had not been heard from for years, and was presumably leading a comfortable life somewhere. Ruka was a teacher at the Duel Academy.

Yusei stared at the picture frame, wrinkled hands grasping it with all the strength it had. His friends had not returned once.

From his pocket, he took out his deck. It was still the same deck as ever, none of those XYZ monsters the young people were crazy about. It still had the monsters that had led him through countless troubles – Junk Warrior, Stardust Dragon, Shooting Star Dragon…

He hadn't changed one bit since his friends left; they had changed. Only he kept clinging on to the past, clinging on to the hope that one day, Team 5D's would be reborn the way Team Satisfaction had been reborn a long time ago.

A long time ago.

Yusei shuffled off his bed. He changed into the clothes that practically defined him, snuck out of the ward and took the elevator down into the parking area.

That distinctive red D-Wheel stood in the parking lot, dusted and rusty from years of use.

He grasped the hood of the D-Wheel and shook some dust off it. The dust settled on the ground and stayed there.

Yusei clambered into the seat of his D-Wheel and put his deck into the chipped deck slot. He slowly pulled the helmet over his head, realized he couldn't see out of it for all the dust it had collected on the visor and shook it weakly. His hands slipped and the helmet dropped out of his hands, hooking on one of the winglets on his wheels. He bent over, slowly and painfully, to pick it up.

He needed to relive Team 5D's.

Yusei revved the spluttering engine and eased his way out of the underground parking lot. Once he was outside, the wheels of the D-Wheel screeched against tarmac as he sped away from the hospital.

Satellite was no longer a separate entity that seemed to orbit around Neo Domino; through land reclamation and large bridge links, Satellite had become a part of Neo Domino. The distinction between mainland Neo Domino and Satellite were no longer distinguishable to the human eye, and many of the broken down buildings Yusei was accustomed to seeing as part of his childhood were gone, replaced by newer homes.

There was only one area of Satellite that remained untouched.

* * *

_A long time ago, there were no links between Neo Domino City and Satellite._

_There was a man who used to look across the body of water that separated the two, and yearned to go to the city. A D-Wheeler, he embodied the beliefs of the citizens in Satellite that nothing was impossible so long as they worked hard._

_Reflecting upon these principles, the man began to build a bridge. At first, the citizens showed nothing but scorn and refused to acknowledge his efforts. However, they slowly warmed up to the idea as the man took building materials to the site everyday without fail and added them to the bridge. This bridge embodied the hopes of the population in Satellite that they would one day rise above their dismal circumstances and lowly treatment. As such, they began to work on the bridge, now known as the Daedalus Bridge, with the D-Wheeler._

_Unfortunately, just as the Daedalus Bridge had managed to inch its way over ¼ of the distance between Satellite and Neo Domino, the Neo Domino Public Maintenance Bureau got wind of the D-Wheeler's plan. They quickly dispatched forces to blow it up, for fear of him actually finishing the Daedalus Bridge. _

_As they attacked the duelists of Satellite working on the bridge, the young D-Wheeler did something unexpected – he took his unfinished D-Wheel and rode it on the Daedalus Bridge, causing a few inconsequential planks of wood to break off. His D-Wheel, shining in the sunlight with the hope of all of Satellite, used the Bridge as a ramp to gain height. Duelists, Satellite and NDPMB alike, stared in awe at this young duelist as his D-Wheel flew across the gap between Satellite and Neo Domino City._

_Rex Goodwin was the hero of his time, but his time had passed a long time ago. One could say the same for Yusei; just that he never accepted it. He continued riding down the streets of Neo Domino City everyday after the disbanding of Team 5D's, never noticing that the number of people looking at him with gazes of admiration steadily decreased as the years passed by._

_Yusei stayed there for 73 years as his health gradually worsened. He stayed in the same spot he had always been – physically and mentally. He'd stagnated his life, yearning for the old glory days._

* * *

Yusei pulled to a stop close to the Daedalus Bridge, his wheels skidding across the ground, worn from the friction of many years. He stared beyond. The linkways between Satellite and Neo Domino were all but gone, leaving a vast expanse of water almost fully covered by floating platforms.

Almost.

The area in front of the Daedalus Bridge remained. Yusei revved his D-Wheel, his eyes fixed on that relatively small hole in the construction platform. The D-Wheel took a second to gain traction, then sped off up the Bridge.

Yusei's memories beckoned to him again, and a rainbow appeared at the end of the bridge.

* * *

"_Yusei, we're not letting you go alone. You understand that, right?"_

_Yusei pondered their words, then smiled. "Let's go, everyone."_

_The rainbow flickered, and in the distance the three Polar Gods heaved. Team 5D's rode together on the Daedalus Bridge…_

* * *

Yusei could see everyone together with him – Rua, Ruka, Aki, Crow, Jack. They looked at him, and then one by one sped up the Bridge. Yusei waited until Jack had become a speck in his vision.

The engines revved.

Yusei, lost in between his memories and reality, launched himself off the Daedalus Bridge. Unlike Rex Goodwin, his D-Wheel had no winglets that allowed it to glide. Team 5D's waved at him, as Yusei fell through the rainbow and downwards, into the abyss.

The D-Wheel screeched as it hit the construction site, beginning to spin uncontrollably. Finally, the D-Wheel hit the safety railing of the construction site, and Yusei was thrown off into the waters.

His body lay beneath the waves that lay underneath Neo Domino City.


End file.
